brown rice pudding

Growing up in a Chinese household, I ate rice. A LOT of rice. Plain white rice. Every day. Every single day. So...needless to say - I've had more than enough experience cooking plain white rice. It was my "job" as a young child to "wash" the rice and measure out the water, so I can pretty much make rice with my eyes closed with a rice cooker.

However, my experience with brown rice? That would be a big fat zero. So when I was asked to cook a recipe using USA brown rice, I was happy to take on the challenge. Did you know that 65% of the rice consumed in Canada is grown in the US? I sure didn't!

Some other pretty interesting rice facts:

• rice is grown in six US states: Arkansas, Lousiana, California, Mississippi, Texas and Missouri.
• rice has been produced in the US for more than 300 years
• there are thousands of rice varieties. 
• one seed of rice yields more than 3,000 grains. It's the highest yielding cereal grain and can grow in many kids of environments and soils (it's grown on every continent except Antarctica

With these cool facts in mind and brown rice in hand, I wanted to create something we had never had before. Rice pudding is one of Paul's favourite desserts, so I thought it would be fun to try creating this comfort food dessert with brown rice instead of the usual white.

This dish was really nice warm, and would be perfect for a winter evening, but it's also great cold (which is how I like to eat my rice pudding).

brown rice pudding 

source: adapted from USA Rice Federation's New Fashioned Brown Rice Pudding
printer-friendly version

ingredients:

3/4 cup US long-grain brown rice

1 3/4 cups water

3 cups whole milk

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar (if you prefer a rice pudding that's less sweet, use 1/2 cup instead)

1 teaspoon pure bourbon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

whipped cream (optional)

ground cinnamon (optional)

directions:

1. In a large saucepan, combine the brown rice and water. Over medium-high heat, bring the rice to a simmer. Reduce heat and cover. Continue to simmer until all the water has been absorbed, about 30 minutes.
2. Add milk and brown sugar to the rice. Cook uncovered over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until rice has a porridge consistency.
3. Remove rice from the heat and stir in vanilla extract and cinnamon.
4. Serve the rice pudding with a topping of whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon (optional)

yields: 6 servings

As you can see, I modified a recipe found on the USA Rice Federation's website. There's tons of great rice info and recipes on their site, including this great Brown Rice, Black Bean and Avocado Pilaf by Rose Reisman: 

Brown rice is definitely a nice change of pace from white rice, and much healthier too. I'm definitely happy that I took on this cooking assignment and am excited to try new brown rice recipes in my day-to-day meals

Disclosure: I was provided with a $50 gift card to help cover the cost of ingredients for this recipe. However, all opinions expressed are my own.